China: British Critics of Communism ‘Extremely Disrespectful’ to Queen Elizabeth

China’s state-run newspaper Global Times on Sunday condemned British critics of the Communist Party — and, in particular, its crimes against humanity, human rights atrocities in the formerly British Hong Kong, and ongoing genocide of Turkic people in East Turkistan — as being “disrespectful” to Queen Elizabeth II by standing up for human rights.

A wave of condemnation of Beijing emerged last week in the United Kingdom in anticipation of the Queen’s funeral, which took place across London and Windsor, England, on Monday. The British government extended invites to the heads of state of nearly every country on earth, including China and omitting only a small list of similarly brutal human rights abuses, such as Russia, Syria, Burma, and Belarus. Some countries – such as Iran, Venezuela, and Nicaragua – received “ambassadorial” invites, meaning their respective dictators could not attend but a designated ambassador could represent the country at the event.

Several British lawmakers and prominent human rights advocates urged London to reconsider China’s presence at the historic event given China’s poor human rights record and the fact that it has sanctioned British politicians specifically for criticizing Beijing. While Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan attended the funeral on Monday, some signs that the British government heeded the concerns emerged on Friday, as anonymous reports suggested British Parliament officials blocked a Chinese delegation from visiting the Queen lying in state that day. Neither the British nor Chinese governments officially confirmed or denied the report.

The Global Times urged the British to “cherish China’s goodwill gesture” of sending Wang to the funeral — even as allied countries sent their heads of state and dictator Xi Jinping stayed home — and discouraged any criticism of China in Britain at all.

A regime-approved “expert,” Renmin University’s Wang Yiwei, asserted that China would not boycott the funeral in response to the protests because it appreciates its ties to London too much.

“It also reflects our diplomatic tradition as a big country, and we won’t lose our diplomatic protocol because certain lawmakers or politicians point fingers at us or because China-UK relations have encountered some problems in the short term,” he said, then claiming that criticism of China sullies the memory of Britain’s longest-serving monarch.

“On the occasion of the funeral, such political hype just made those politicians lose their diplomatic protocol, which is not only disrespectful to China but also disrespectful to the late Queen,” Wang concluded.

The Chinese embassy in London had officially dismissed complaints regarding Beijing’s presence at the event on Saturday, similarly claiming that standing up for human rights is offensive to Queen Elizabeth herself.

“These British parliamentarians are using the solemn occasion of the State Funeral of the Queen for their anti-China hype-up and provocation,” an embassy spokesperson said in an official statement published on the embassy’s site. “This is extremely disrespectful to the late Queen. China is a country that values propriety. Such a despicable action does not deserve our comment.”

The parliamentarians in question — Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Tom Tugendhat, Nus Ghani, and Tim Loughton — publicly condemned China’s invitation to the solemn event in light of the fact that Beijing personally sanctioned them all for opposing the genocide of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other non-Han people by the Communist Party in East Turkistan. The U.K. has officially recognized the genocide in the region as a genocide – an international human rights crime with a discrete definition that requires the perpetrators to intentionally destroy, in whole or in part, one of several protected groups of people.

Speaking to Breitbart London, Benedict Rogers, founder of Hong Kong Watch and the author of the upcoming book The China Nexus, noted that London had failed to invite similarly abusive regimes to the funeral, leaving unclear how China’s behavior differs enough to secure its presence at the event.

“Given that Myanmar, Belarus, and Russia have, absolutely rightly, been banned, it is absurd to invite China, which is alongside them as one of the worst violators of human rights in the world and which poses perhaps the biggest threat to our freedoms around the world,” Rogers told Breitbart London. The queen, he affirmed, represented “all the values that are the antithesis of the Chinese regime: human dignity, freedom, wisdom, compassion, and public service.”

Shortly after these complaints surfaced, the news outlet Politico claimed that the British House of Commons, presumably in defense of its MPs, barred a Chinese communist delegation from visiting the queen while lying in state.

“I haven’t seen the report you mentioned. I want to point out that the state funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is an important activity of the UK,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in response to a question on the report. “Foreign delegations attend the activity at the invitation of the UK side to show respect to the late Queen and the importance they attach to the UK. As the host, the UK side is certainly familiar with diplomatic protocols and proper manners of receiving guests.”

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